“I see what you are trying to accomplish,” the counselor spoke quietly to me during one of my re-entry debriefing sessions. “You think if you can figure out a new skillset to adopt, you can avoid difficulties like your boss in Afghanistan firing you and sending you home.”

“Sounds good to me. Surely that can work.” I held my pen posed over my journal to jot down her suggestions.

“C’mon, as a counselor yourself, you know it doesn’t happen like that. This is an inside-out job. God is at work transforming your heart, your spirit, and the new behaviors flow from that,” she continued with compassion in her eyes.

My own eyes overflowed with tears yet again. After seven years overseas, with all the challenge, trauma, personal struggles, and now ending with a disgraceful finale, I honestly felt I could not handle more brokenness, more internal remodeling.

I was correct that more brokenness was ahead, but wrong that it would crush me. The two years of foggy transition included more dedicated times of reflection, counseling and coaching by professionals, loving mentors, and family members. I did the willful, emotional work of forgiving others and myself over weeks and months. 

I asked God painful questions about my pride, my self-reliance, my compassion level for others, and then sat for hours in the safety of my quiet home to try and embrace new truth, new hope for future freedom from old habits and fleshly defaults. 

During the second year, I felt led to write about life lessons learned which culminated into a book, something I never aspired to achieve. More cleansing, more release, more transformation resulted from parking thoughts and words on a page. The rewrite four years later before publication added another layer of insight as I recognized some improvement had occurred in personal attitudes and behaviors. 

From the Old Testament Ezekiel promise of a new heart to New Testament encouragement that we are being changed from the inside-out over time, we see God’s faithfulness to us. His transformation results in glory to His name and more life satisfaction for us.